The chaffering goes on hotly; two fine mackerel are handed over at thirteen sous, four good ones, not quite so fine, at sixteen sous. All the dealing is in sous. Strange, evil-looking fish with large heads are sold for a song, and each customer as she gets them—for it is nearly always a she—slips them into her string bag, and goes on her way rejoicing, with a cheap and wholesome dinner for the young ones at home. High on the cliff across the water, is the stiff new little church—there is another in the town below—and behind it, on the windswept cliff, the Le Pollet cemetery, filled with the cheap wooden crosses laden with those tawdry ornaments that mean so much and tell so little. But the Le Pollet cemetery does not account for more than a fraction of its dead, for many a man and lad lie out beyond the point in the shifting sea, and the wives and mothers at home have no graves on which to lay their hardly bought offerings. On Le Pollet, under the renowned General Talbot, the English erected a fort called the Bastille, a name still retained by its site.

THE QUAY, DIEPPE

But in lingering by the town and along the quay, we have not yet visited the castle of Dieppe, which is at the other end, rearing itself steeply on its mighty cliff. For Dieppe lies in the valley between two heights, and occupies the space dipping down to the level of the sea, hence the name which signifies deep, and is related to our names of Deepdale and Deepdene. The castle hill was at first occupied by a mere fort, which Rollo rebuilt; and Rollo’s fort lasted until the time of Henry II. of England, who rebuilt it entirely, but Henry’s fort stood a very short time, for when Philip Augustus retook the country from John, one of his first acts was to raze any strong places which might afford the English a foothold, and this fort was among the number. Nevertheless his destruction was not entire, and some of the walls attributed to Henry still remain incorporated in the castle, which was begun by the Dauphin, after the historic fight of Arques in 1435. The four towers belong to this date, but various additions were made later. There is no admission to the castle now, and but little history to clothe its walls in an aroma of the past. The most interesting name connected with it is that of the merchant prince, Jean Ango, who died here in 1551. Ango was a native of Dieppe, and began life as a common sailor, but he had in him that curious ability to seize his opportunity, which goes to the making of a fortune more than any other quality. He soon rose to be a shipowner, and wealth bringing wealth, he owned a whole fleet of vessels, and was a power on the sea. When King François came to Dieppe, he was received and entertained by Ango in princely style. François made his host governor of Dieppe in return, and afterwards conferred upon him the dignity of a vicomte. It was in 1525 that Ango built a house of the old timber style, magnificently carved, on the site where the Lycée now stands, opposite the station, by the quay where the Newhaven boats arrive and depart. Shortly afterwards he followed this up by a country house at Varengeville, which is still standing (see p. [173]). Ango is described by a contemporary as a big blonde man, with a large head and a gay expression. For long he ruled as a prince, both on sea and land; when the Portuguese had the audacity to harass French shipping, it was Ango who armed twelve ships and made war on his own account, capturing several of the Portuguese vessels. The king sent angrily to ask the French king why he had done this, as the two countries were then at peace, and the French king replied gaily that he must ask Ango, who alone was responsible.

But this big, cheery, bluff man, a sailor at heart, changed unaccountably in his old age; he grew morose, suspicious, and overbearing; he quarrelled with his neighbours, got himself entangled in lawsuits, and finally, ruined in pocket and credit, had to take refuge from his enemies within the castle walls, where he died.

The general idea is that Arques is the parent town of Dieppe, and that the men of Arques gradually established themselves on the sea-coast, for the purpose of fishing. Others, however, point to the Camp of Cæsar, anciently called the City of Limes, which is on the top of the hill near Puys, as an old Gaulish settlement before the advent of Cæsar, and say that this was the parent town, and that the settlement at Dieppe came later, when a great part of the cliff near the Gaulish town had fallen bodily into the sea.

With the siege of the castle of Arques by William the Conqueror we have dealt elsewhere. But the castle of Arques, always a stronghold, underwent a yet more terrible ordeal in the attack by Henri IV. in 1589, when it was held by the Duc de Mayenne. The king had 4000 men against 30,000 of the Leaguers, but the smaller force was victorious, and the battle was long spoken of as a miraculous event.

Having so far dealt with the immediate surroundings of Dieppe, we turn now the coast-line. The great white cliffs which rise vertically on both sides of Dieppe have their counterparts in the white cliffs of England, so exactly similar in structure that no one can doubt they once joined across what is now the Channel. Even were there no other means of judging, the great friability of these cliffs and the masses which continually fall off into the sea, driving the coast-lines further and further apart, would alone answer the suggestion in the affirmative. All the way to Tréport stretches this grand rampart. Tréport is situated in the embouchure of the river Bresle, and above it rise the cliffs. It has a modern part with first-class hotels, a casino, and other of the usual attractions, and the older village nestles in the narrow valley ascending from the beach. The beach is limited by the river to the east, beyond which begins the beach of Mer.

Eu is a place of considerable importance in Norman history. It is the outlying border town of Normandy in this direction, and beyond it was the vexed country of Ponthieu, between whose counts and the Norman dukes there was so much fighting. All those who have followed the chapter on the Bayeux tapestry will remember that it was on the territory of Ponthieu that the unfortunate Harold was blown by wind and tide, and that it was Guy, Count of Ponthieu, who brought his captive proudly to William. He did not, however, do so until he had been repeatedly commanded by William, who also bribed him, though Guy was “his man,” having done homage to him five or six years previously. Eu had also been the scene of the Conqueror’s marriage about ten years before, when his Flemish bride, his own first cousin, had met him here. The church which witnessed that famous ceremony has disappeared, but the present one, a fine building of the thirteenth century, worthily replaces it.

In the Chapelle du College, a splendid building, are some fine monuments to the Guises, whose name was associated with Eu in the sixteenth century. The elder Guise, François, was called Le Balafré, because he bore on his face a horrible scar from a sword-cut received at Boulogne; he was assassinated in 1563, and succeeded by his son Henri, also assassinated in 1588.